


Artificial Road

by La_Llorona



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Dubious Consent, Hallucifer, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Psychological Horror, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/La_Llorona/pseuds/La_Llorona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then there were the nights when Lucifer showed up, looking eerily like Sam. He’d sit on the edge of the bed in a crisp, white suit, smelling a blood red rose and telling Sam all about—everything. The beginning of time. The end of time. The inevitable outcome of things. He’d talk about God and the other angels. He’d talk about humanity and the filthiness of their lies. He’d talk about how beautiful the stars were that night. How simple and infinite the snow was somewhere in the world, and how simple and infinite the sun was elsewhere.<br/>Sometimes Sam got trapped in these stories and forgot his own name.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>...Sam can't figure out if he's really on earth or still trapped in Hell with Lucifer. Either way, there's no escape, especially when the Devil starts taking the form of Dean Winchester...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial Road

It’s something like living in a three-story house that’s under construction.

The smell of raw wood and shavings, it’s everywhere.

Tarps flapping in the breeze that’s hitting him in the gut while his sneakers pound the sidewalk. The fact that the sidewalk’s so distressingly _normal_ and the neighborhood’s so intrinsically _suburban,_ well, those things tell him outright that this isn’t his life.

Sam can’t feel the burn in his muscles that’s supposed to come with a good, long workout. Maybe he runs around chasing monsters too much for that to be possible, or maybe it’s because he’s burning all the time now. _You know your brain’s bubbling as I speak, dontcha, Sam? Oh, and you’re missing a couple of limbs, but don’t worry, I’ll put them back on soon._

The landscape’s a familiar desert in between the beams and tape. The floor’s unfinished, and Sam squeezes the stitched scar on his palm as he jogs. The sky’s a spotted robin’s egg. Everything’s too clean and suburban to be his life. It’s like sitting outside with the leaves and Jess in the pretty Stanford community again. And that’s how he knows it’s not real.

_I’ll put them back on soon, so I can take them off again. Do you know what it means when a soul hits the meat-grinder, Sammy?_

He’s sweating when he comes into the motel room, sees Not-Dean at the computer, which might be more evidence, because when was the last time Real-Dean did any research? He always leaves that to Sam. But Sam feels obligated to ask what he’s got, because at least for now, Not-Dean’s better than No Dean At All.

But the entire hunt is so painstakingly average.

It’s so painstakingly easy to go along with it all. The witches, the gruesome deaths, it almost feels like Real-Life, except something’s off. There’s this one crack that opens a hole in his head and makes it pound. But he can still rustle up the energy to make a really good, really Sam-Like point to Not-Dean about talking to him, about trusting him, about putting the load on him, like in that old song, because that’s what family’s for. And it’s so painstakingly easy to talk like that. It makes him miss Real-Dean when he feels the fire in his veins again.

But worse than the fire is the cold.

He knows he’s shaking under the motel room comforter, and he knows it’s Lucifer’s breath on his skin. Souls are more concrete than he ever thought before. Souls can be ruined just as badly—worse even—than physical bodies can. And whatever comes out of him when Lucifer rips it, whatever comes out of him wells just like thick blood before spilling out. And, you know, Lucifer thinks that’s delicious and suffocating and beautiful and ugly. He sucks up whatever it is and makes Sam do it all over again.

The pounding out there is the pounding in here.

Regular motel room creaks, splotches on Sam’s eyelids. He can hear the zooming cars, the slowing cars, all the cars riding down the road. All of them look just like the Impala.

And he’s sure—really sure—that he’s blind for a second. Cause Lucifer delicately carved his eyes out.

But no, on second thought, his eyes are just closed.

But no on second thought.

“Sammy. Hey, Sam, wake up.”

It sounds like Dean, and that’s really mean of him. Lucifer doesn’t have the right to sound like Dean. Where’d he get a license to do that? Dean’s too sacred to touch.

“Sam. You’re freakin’ vibrating, man.”

Sam has to wake up and go along with this. It beats having his eyes cut out again, like the piece of chewy meat on an otherwise tasty scrap of chicken. Chewy meat. His bones are crunching themselves. He’s perfectly aware of that as he sits up and falls apart. His bones are colliding underneath his skin, smashing together like a domino-style car crash.

“I’m okay, Dean. Really. Go back to bed.”

Not-Dean looks too pretty and wide-eyed, like a caricature. That’s part of Lucifer’s game too. He’s trying to darken the lines on everything Sam loves about Dean’s face and body and personality.

He also looks like he doesn’t believe a single word Sam says. He gets off the bed, though. A little too obedient for Dean, don’t you think, Lucifer? He’s not going to put up a fight? Oh, he’s getting his own blanket.

Red lights surge through the window, ride through Sam’s skull, and are gone again.

Not-Dean tosses his lump of covers onto Sam’s bed.

“Stay warm. Got it?”

“Dean…”

“Got it.”

Not-Dean flops back onto his own bed, stretching into one of those twisted-ass positions Real-Dean’s partial to. His arm’s bending backwards, as if someone’s holding it there, gonna cuff him in some crooked BDSM display.

The clamps on Sam’s wrists are touching his inner layer of messy flesh with their freezing steel and iron. His bones are shivering now, as he lays back down and takes it.

There are too many blankets, and he tosses and turns under Lucifer’s weight.

 

The diner’s noisy, and all the customers continually beat their heads against tables.

It’s rattling plates and silverware, and Sam can’t do anything but glance at all of them.

They look so possessed that Sam almost believes this is his life.

“Dude, are you listening to me?”

Oh, Not-Dean’s talking again.

“Hm? Yeah, all ears.”

Not-Dean’s talking about the next hunt. He’s eating everything Real-Dean would. Eggs, bacon, potatoes, coffee’s there. He’s talking about their next hunt, ‘cause they have jack-squat on the leviathans.

The leviathans—very original, Lucifer.

Sam’s pancakes are getting cold and sticky. He picks up the shiny fork and knife and cuts into them, nice and easy. He glances at Not-Dean every once in a while. Everything else is deadly quiet. The other customers have hollow eyes now, don’t they?

Stop looking at them.

He puts the little square of pancake in his mouth and chews. The pain’s a bitch. He can taste tangy blood, mingling with the syrup. There’s a lump, can’t bite it. Oh, God. He spits it out and there’s a blood-soaked tooth on his plate.

“Dean…”

“What?”

“Nothing…go on.”

Sam keeps chewing and spits five more out through his lips.

He can feel himself groaning. He can feel something spiking in his throat. His teeth are like beads rolling around in his mouth. The blood tastes bad.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“Shut up!”

Sam gets up from the booth before he gags right there in front of Dean. He remembers to toss the silverware on the plate before getting the hell out of there.

The parking lot’s a good enough place as any to vomit.

 

The sun outside is toxic.

It burns through Sam’s eyelids until he presses his palms deep against them and slowly gets on his knees, letting the gravel grind through his jeans. He knows there are only a few other cars in the parking lot, and all of them look like Real-Dean’s 1967 Chevy Impala.

Sam doesn’t really care if anyone was watching him come undone in a freaking parking lot. They’re not real anyway. What does it matter? His eyes sting and burn, and the dripping is searing him, and his mouth feels flat and useless and hollow, and all the blood comes gushing out of it, painting the gravel with red blotches.

His voice is scaly and oozing.

“Now _that’s_ sad, Sam.”

He wants to yell, “Go away!” but it’s impossible now. So, he screams instead. It’s loud and stuttering and breathless, and he can’t believe that sound came out of him.

“Just…pitiful. Don’t you think it’s about time you let me in?”

His shoes are scuffed, and Sam knows what he looks like. Today, he doesn’t look like Jessica, thank God, and he doesn’t look like Sam, thank God again, but he looks like the burned vessel Sam’s most used to seeing him in.

“We used to have some nice little conversations, bunk buddy.”

_You did all the talking._ But Sam can’t speak.

“Lemme finish that off for ya.”

And God, Lucifer’s hand’s in his mouth and he’s screaming and choking, and the fingers around his tongue are rough and craggy, the same fingers he jammed up Sam’s soul, making it quiver and break apart with the squirting stuff Lucifer loved to drink.

Then there’s a tug, a thrust, and Sam screams again when his tongue comes off in Lucifer’s hand.

Hot tears are running down his face. First time in a long time.

“Aw, see, that wasn’t so bad.”

Sam clenches his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to watch Lucifer lick the blood off the tongue. It didn’t look like a tongue. It looked like a chewy slab of meat, thick and disgusting.

“Big brother’s gonna come looking for you soon. Why don’t you open your eyes, Sammy?”

Somewhere in that sentence, Lucifer’s voice melted into Dean’s. Not-Dean’s maybe. It wasn’t Dean. It couldn’t be, since Dean’s not down here. Dean’s up there with Lisa and Ben and happiness, and more tears fall out ‘cause Sam actually didn’t see Dean again. He was so sure he’d been reunited with Dean, but nope, he’d never actually gotten to see Dean again.

“I’m right here,” Not-Dean says, and when Sam opens his eyes, Not-Dean’s crouching, squeezing his little brother’s shoulders in that familiar way, but it’s Not-Him.

“I miss you…”

Sam doesn’t know how he’s talking, but his mouth feels full again. Maybe he’s okay for right now. His head’s spinning and curling up like an intestine.

“I’m here for you. Just like I always am.”

And Not-Dean does something Real-Dean’s never done before, and God, Sam knows it’s fake now, because Dean’s warm mouth is thick against Sam’s, pressing them together, trading a couple breaths. Sam can’t feel his own body. It’s like he doesn’t have one, because everything he has belongs to Dean.

“Is this all it takes to win you over…?”

Sam can feel himself saying yes. His hands latch onto Dean’s jacket, and then Dean’s there, firm against him. Their mouths are together again, hot, wet, hot.

And there’s a tingling in his brain saying _this is why you’re my vessel Sam, all this ugly desire and anger and depression._

But he just pulls Dean closer to make that voice go away. He wants to sink into him, capture his light and just have one tiny fracture of it. Rucks up the jacket and several shirts with his hand to feel Dean’s smooth skin underneath. If he just had one sliver of Dean’s life, maybe he could be saved too. If anyone could save him, it would be Dean.

“You’re all mine aren’t you?”

Sam can feel himself saying yes.

“Sam! What’re you doing?”

Sam can feel himself tipping over.

 

And the voice doesn’t go away in the motel bathroom.

There’s one Dean who tells him to hang on and one Dean who says to hold him. He can’t say no, he can’t say no, he can’t say no. Dean’s in the shower, right there, while Sam brushes his teeth, and he has no idea which freakin’ Dean it is. It’s probably Lucifer. It has to be Lucifer, because he’s naked, and the shower curtain’s thin, and he knows he can see him and wants him and will say yes, I’m yours, you got me.

But they’re both Not-Dean. Neither is Real-Dean, so what is the difference? Why listen to one and not the other? This’s Lucifer’s world.

“Pass me the soap, Sammy?”

Sam holds the slick soap bottle and passes it to Dean through a crack in the curtain. He keeps his eyes on the thin face in the mirror instead of looking Dean’s way.

“Kinda quiet today. Thought we could have a little fun before we start that new hunt.”

Deadpan. “We  don’t have fun, Dean. Ever.”

“Oh come on, yes, we do.”

The shower’s back on, water gushing out of the faucet. He glances over to see Dean’s smudgy form stroking itself. Sam feels dizzy and all his heat rushes downward. He has to get out of the bathroom and does, before Dean can say another word.

Another Dean is sitting on the bed.

He’s cleaning his gun, and this is probably original Not-Dean. But what’s it matter anyway? Sam sits carefully on the edge of the other bed and asks himself what it matters anyway.

“How’re you doing?”

“Fine. I’m—fine.”

“You look like crap, man.”

Sam snorts. “So do you. It’s not like you can hide it, Dean. I know how screwed-up you’ve been feeling after Cas…you know.”

“Yeah, whatever. I was just checking up on you and your hell-pain, don’t piss me off.”

“I don’t have… _hell-pain.”_

Dean gives him this not-buying-it face.

“Okay. Maybe I do. But I’m handling it the best way I can.”

“You were sobbing. In a parking lot, Sam. Grabbing onto thin are, far as I can tell. Didn’t look like ‘handling it’ to me.”

“Stop. Just…stop. Talk to me about the case.”

So Dean respects him and does that. Sam feels a sharp stabbing when the shower water shuts off, and Dean seems to notice his change in expression, but he’s nice enough not to mention it.

 

Sam goes jogging again that night, ‘cause what else is he supposed to do?

The exercising at least clears his head a little, even if Dean mocks him for it. Not-Dean, Not-Dean Number One, whoever he may be. Tonight, it doesn’t matter to Sam. He’s just jogging it off. The half-way house is up around him again, and he wants to pass it by. Half-way house. _Halfway house_. Funny. Weird. Scary. Sam runs faster. He wants to feel his muscles burn away.

He hasn’t been sleeping much. Lucifer won’t allow that. Whenever Sam tries, Dean’s always there, naked in the bed with him, and Sam’s sure he made some noises that got the attention of Other-Dean. Sam’s sure his underwear wasn’t the same in the morning. And neither were his hands, because the Dean in his bed cut them off. Sam watched him do it, even said yes when he asked if it was okay. But it hurt like hell, and he was screaming until both Deans were on his bed—one clothed, one unclothed, one with a hand over his mouth and one with a hand on his shoulder.

Then there were the nights when Lucifer showed up, looking eerily like Sam. He’d sit on the edge of the bed in a crisp, white suit, smelling a blood red rose and telling Sam all about—everything. The beginning of time. The end of time. The inevitable outcome of things. He’d talk about God and the other angels. He’d talk about humanity and the filthiness of their lies. He’d talk about how beautiful the stars were that night. How simple and infinite the snow was somewhere in the world, and how simple and infinite the sun was elsewhere.

Sometimes Sam got trapped in these stories and forgot his own name.

But Sam never gets trapped when he’s jogging. He runs past streetlamps and uneven concrete. It isn’t dark enough that night. Sam can see the red on the trees and shudders. He can see the cracks in the street and feels like retching. But he keeps himself running and tries to hum one of Dean’s favorite songs.

Maybe Dean heard him, because there he is, dark lines standing out across his face under the too-bright streetlamp.

Sam slows down, because it’s Dean, so what else was he supposed to do?

_Hey._ It sounded like Dean but his lips weren’t even moving.

There’s no wind. Not too many sounds.

“You know what you gotta do tonight,” Dean tells him.

“Not really.”

Dean’s stepping out of the streetlamp light or Sam’s stepping inside it. There’s no distinction, no way to tell which, but they’re so close now, almost chest-to-chest.

“You know you’ve gotta kill yourself tonight.”

Something inside Sam breaks. It’s not his bones. He can still feel them, intact.

“Why?” His voice is breaking.

“’Cause it’d be better for both of us.”

_Cause you’re a monster._

_Cause you ruined everything._

_Cause you ruined my life._

_Why do I always have to take care of you?_

_Why do I always have to save you?_

_Cause you’re a freak._

_Cause I can’t handle this anymore._

_Cause I’m suicidal._

_Cause you’re suicidal too._

_Cause we can’t go on like this, Sammy._

_Cause one of us has to let go._

_Cause it has to be you._

_Cause you started this, you gotta finish it._

_Cause I need you to._

_Cause I want you to._

_Cause I’m your brother._

_“Stop.”_

_Cause you love me._

_“Just stop it.”_

_Cause I’m all the family you’ve got._

_“Dean!”_

_Cause there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me._

_“Dean, I can’t—Dean—“_

“Cause you said so yourself!”

“Why are you doing this to me?!”

Everything’s deathly quiet, and Not-Dean’s face is gone. It’s just smooth, gently freckled skin, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. The light makes him too white. Sam can feel himself stepping away, backwards.

“Because I killed you! Because _I_ destroyed you, you want to destroy me. But you can’t! I’m _stronger_ than you, I’m stronger than—than this, this thing you’re making me.”

_You said there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me._

_I said there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Dean._

But Sam doesn’t say it out loud, because he’s too busy running, and it’s best to not answer anyway. Answering him is feeding him, and Sam’s done feeding him. He’ll run away, back to the motel room, back to Other-Dean, who at least acts Mostly-Right. He at least wants Sam to be okay. But he’s not Real-Dean, so what’s it matter?

The streetlamps are too bright, and so are the headlights of that truck slashing by.

Sam grounds his fingers into the stitched scar while he runs. It’s as if, for the last couple days, weeks, he couldn’t remember why he even does that. What’s the purpose behind it? Nothing. But—

Sam keeps running, squeezing the scar.

_…Stone one and build on it…_

Sam knows exactly where he’s going. There’s no one following him. There’re voices, but no one’s following him.

_…Believe in that. Believe_ me.

Sam can hear the tarp’s flapping and can smell the sawdust. The house is creaking, like it’s coming down. He’s trying to run away from it, damn. What if it crushes him on the way down? Keep running.

Well, just keep running, right? That’s all he knows, pretty much all he’s ever done his life.

Why stop now?

He runs all the way back to that motel room, and finds his way inside, where the lights are already on, and Dean’s already standing, waiting for him in crumpled clothes, and he stiffens when Sam wraps his arms around him and holds him. Slow breaths.

He kind of feels like himself.

“What happened?”

“Nothing important.”

“You’re crushing me, man.”

“I know.” Sam lets go and can’t help but smile at Dean’s weird, confused expression.

“I just...” _I think you’re real._

“Just?”

“Nothing.” Smiles again. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

“Oh, so you’re actually gonna go to sleep tonight?”

“Yeah.”

The look on Dean’s face is so relieved that Sam knows, for just one second, that this is Dean. His big brother, always watching out for him. Not some caricature or dream or nightmare. His Dean. That second’s all that matters right now, so Sam takes it, puts it in his pocket and heads back to bed.

They don’t shut off the lights, ‘cause they’re both too tired to care, and the light isn’t burning Sam’s eyes out.

The creaks are familiar. Dean’s shifting, that’s familiar. He’s folding himself into an uncomfortable position again.

Sam closes his eyes easily and falls asleep to his own thoughts for once.


End file.
